Private When the Smoke Clears

[Lily Rhodes]

Tags: Mercy​

Everything hurt.

The searing heat from the blaster wound in her shoulder pulsed beneath bacta bandages, bruises across her back and chest made it impossible to find any position to rest in. The after effects of the stims made her head pound, the ache made doubly worse by everything that had flowed through her network.

Never again.

Twice she’d tried to leave and been herded back to the hospital bed. She kept asking about Vess, about Arris but no one wanted to talk to her, no one wanted to tell her anything. It was like she was a nobody.

She was pulling her boots on again hoping, aiming for attempt number three to get herself the fuck out of here. She didn’t care that they wanted to stick her in a bacta tank, she wanted to gte out, to get away, to find Vess, find Arris and get the fuck off this planet.

Lily could still hear it all, beyond the clinical walls of the hospital Abregado Rae was still dying, and every death she heard, every life snuffed out was another one to carry into her nightmares.

The door slid open and Lily looked up from her laces.

“Oh for fucks sake.”

 

[Mercy]

Lily Rhodes

Her presence in the Force arrived before she did.

They hadn't seen each other since Humbarine, but a lot had changed since then.

Oppressive, thick tar, dark. It radiated out of her in waves, each time her heart beat, another wave approached. Drowning everything else out besides Mercy's fury, hunger, her passion. But it was the gaze in her eyes that stood out the most. Regal, almost imperial. Few if anyone knew that Mercy had at one point been Merisya Danton Eristo, Crown Princess to the Tionese Empire.

She had posed herself as a ruffian, a brawler, someone who said things like: I will tear you from mouth to arse and didn't blink at it.

But Mercy looked every inch an Empress now.

“Oh for fucks sake.”

"I suppose I deserve that." Her voice amused, a stark contrast to both the atmosphere being infected by her presence. "We did not leave things all that well, did we?"

She could have leaned into the fact that half her body had been burned to a crisp.

That every breath taken and every word spoken had been agony.

But that would have been an excuse. Mercy would have dismissed Lily back then, agony or not.

"You look properly fucked up, if you don't mind me saying." She leaned against the wall next to the door. "But you fought your little heart out, didn't you, darling?"

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Tags: Mercy​

We are the end of this planet… and the next one. And the next…

The echo of Mercy’s promise rattled in her skull, all the louder now she was here, every wave of darkness rolling off her making Lily’s stomach twist. She focused on her laces her jaw tightening, something dark within her wanted to rise in response but Lily clamped down on it.

She let out a hollow laugh, letting her foot fall off the bed, pulling the other one towards her and working on the laces there, though her fingers were trembling. Arris had warned her to stay away, she never asked why, she just trusted her.

"But you fought your little heart out, didn't you, darling?"

Lily’s eyes snapped up, burning with rage, with hate.

“Like I had a fucking choice.” she spat. She had had a choice though, and they both knew it. She could have said no, to Arris, to A’Mia. She could have taken Vess and walked away but once she was on the ground, once she was in the thick of it?

There was only survival.

She swallowed against the lump in her throat, her voice dangerously shaky.

“What do you want, Mercy?”

 

[Mercy]

Lily’s eyes snapped up, burning with rage, with hate.

Mercy smiled her terrible smile.

"There she is..." She murmured softly. "My little Lord."

She thought being wrong would anger her more. And true, right after Abregado-rae had been won for the Sith, Mercy had given herself a moment to properly rage about so many of her assumptions being proven false. But then after that... she had felt a terrible joy. Being proven wrong wasn't so bad, when the consequence was so horrific for the rest of the Galaxy.

This one was squarely on herself.

And she'd have to remember to thank Arris Windrun for her instincts.

They had almost lost Lily Rhodes and all because she hadn't valued her for what she was. Instead dismissing her for what she was not.

“What do you want, Mercy?”

"Why, Lily, I have come to you in defeat." She said with a little graceful sketched bow. It looked almost comical on someone that large and monstrous. Almost.

"I wanted to give you your gift in person. I know I am the bigger woman by sheer virtue of being me, but in this case, I decided I should be the bigger one in spirit too. It is the least you deserve."

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Tags: Mercy​

"There she is..." She murmured softly. "My little Lord."

It made her feel physically sick, the twisted smile, the way she complimented her. It only made it worse, the anger and hate twisted into self loathing. She closed her eyes, tried to breathe through it, to find some semblance of calm in the middle of a place that still reeked of a warzone.

She couldn’t.

Lily opened her eyes, defeat weighing on her shoulders. Was this it? Was this what she was now?

Mercy bowed and the spiral into self loathing oblivion paused, her eyebrow raising as suspicion rose with it. A gift, bigger in spirit? She lifted a hand to rub her face exhaling a sigh. How did she make this go faster, so she could escape the vile woman's presence?

“What are you talking about?”

 

[Mercy]

Lily Rhodes

"Your first gift... you will be the first person in existence... to hear this." Her brows furrowed at that. She had apologized before in the past but only rarely and only about small things, however admitting that she was wrong? About anything? Ever? No, Mercy couldn't recall a single instance of that, at least not when it came to this sort of magnitude.

Doing both at once?

It should have sickened her.

To look into the eyes of someone so physically fragile and tell them that she had been wrong.

But it didn't.

All that Mercy could feel was pride. Sickening pride that Lily had not just survived, but been a feral little shit bird, that launched herself at the impossible and kept fighting until her body gave out.

"I was wrong, Lily." Mercy finally said with a deep sigh. "I thought you were weak. I thought you were a nobody. A footnote in everyone else's history."

She stopped herself before she could continue to dig Lily's proverbial grave.

"But I was wrong- you are strong, fierce, you push through and you stood tall on Abregado." She squinted there at Lily for a moment longer. Mercy really didn't want to do the next part. But the Lord of the Covenant had to, that is what it meant, to take responsibility. To look at your children and not only see their potential, but also wish to cultivate it further.

"...and so I apologize, for how I treated you, what I said, and for grabbing you like you were a miniscule rodent rather than the Lord you are."

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Tags: Mercy​

Lily just stared at her.

She didn’t know Mercy well enough to understand the significance of such an apology but what she did understand is the sickening feeling that settled in her stomach. Was this how low she would have to stoop, for anyone to see her as more than the nobody she was?

“Stop calling me that.” she whispered, blinking against tears that came unbidden, misery drowning the anger and hate for Mercy.

Because beneath the self loathing, beneath all of it there was a modicum of triumph.

Thousands of people had died, slaughtered for a cause she didn’t even believe in and she had helped make it happen. She swallowed against the despair that threatened to drown her, she wouldn’t give Mercy that, she wouldn’t break in front of her.

Where the fuck was Arris Windrun ? Why couldn’t it have been her to find her first? Or Vess.

“You said first,” she said, closing her eyes, trying to focus on anything but the storm of emotions she was trying to keep contained, she needed her to go, she needed her to get on with whatever it was she was here to do so she could leave.

“What was the second?”

 

[Mercy]

Lily Rhodes

Srina Talon would have been better at this. She would have swept Lily into a hug without even a second consideration, because she saw her child in sorrow and crying. But Mercy was not Srina and even after Abregado-rae, she viewed their children in a different way. Where Srina was protective, wishing to safe-keep the Sith, Mercy was challenging... wishing to make them stronger.

Even if it meant pulling them through hell to make it happen.

That hadn't changed.

Mercy looked away from the sorrow. Immediately uncomfortable by the display of weakness, coming from someone she had just declared a Lord. The Mercy of Humbarine would have already slapped her in the face for it.

This one was trying to do better.

"I remember the first time I touched the Dark Side." Mercy said quietly as she looked out the window. "I was younger than you, twelve, maybe thirteen. I had run away from..." Brows furrowed there, hatred spiking into the atmosphere at finishing that thought. "-I had run away with the desire to become Sith. Because Sith were powerful, Sith were free, Sith could do anything they want and nobody would dare to tell them who they should be."

"But when I arrived at the Sith Academy, all I found were old men and women, who had not accomplished anything in life and yet thought they had a right to decide who I was supposed to be anyway."

Finger nails dug into her palms.

She finally looked at Lily again.

"They beat me. They starved me. They did everything they could to break my spirit. And one day I snapped and used the Force to break the neck of a particularly cruel instructor. In the moment I felt triumph, afterwards, I just felt empty." Mercy shrugged. "I ran away that same night, to Nar Shaddaa, and on the path that led me here."

Her eyes like caverns in a mountain wall, burning bright. It disgusted her to share this, any of this, but Lily if she dared to look with her mind would see there was no deception in that stormy mind of Mercy.

Just the certainty that Lily ought to hear from someone who had become Sith at a young age.

"We all have a point in our life, a crossroads, where we get to decide who we want to be. I never forced you on this path, hell, I am pretty sure I tried to chase you off of the path." A bit self-deprecating in that moment. "That last bit was my mistake, I was trying so hard not to be like those old masters of mine, that I dismissed you out of hand."

With a slow stroll she'd move to sit down on the other end of the bed. Still not approaching Lily too closely.

"Good ol' Windrun, I shouldn't be surprised she saw your potential. She always does." That last comment spoken more to herself than to Lily.

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Tags: Mercy​

Lily listened, her eyes fixed on the floor instead of the mountain of a woman as she told her story. But it was different, so very very different from her own. Mercy had wanted this path, those that had chaperoned her on it, however cruel, had given her exactly what she wanted.

She had never wanted this.

She had never wanted the twisted triumph, she never wanted the rage. She never wanted to do nothing while thousands died, worse than that she had never wanted to be a part of the cause. Lily was becoming everything she promised herself she never would.

Tension crept into her shoulders when Mercy moved, her gaze lifting to watch her as she settled at the foot of her bed and unease crept up her spine. She was in arms reach of her now, it was far too close for comfort but moving created the risk that Mercy might become the predator Lily knew her to be.

Some animals couldn’t resist the urge to chase prey when it ran.

So she stayed where she was, her pulse racing.

“Whatever you think you know about me Mercy, you are wrong. This isn’t my crossroads. I was on this path before you decided I wasn’t interesting enough. So please, spare me the misery of you trying to bond.”

She shook her head.

“Can we get to the part where one of us leaves?”

 

[Mercy]

Lily Rhodes

The reaction was immediate.

The Dark Side had been pulsing out of Mercy in steady waves with every heart beat.

The moment those words came out, that rhythm went into overdrive, laced with hurt. An emotion that one didn't often associate with Mercy. What did it take to hurt someone like that? Apparently all it took was having her history thrown back into her face, after she had offered it as an olive branch. Her eyes changed.

Darkened, pain in them, but also the predatory slits of someone about to move for the kill.

And before Abregado-rae, that would have been that. Lily would have had her head ripped off. Then it would have been deposited in front of Arris Windrun with a simple message: An apprentice for an apprentice. I do believe that is fair, do you not? And from there it would have spiraled, tit for tat, until the Sith Covenant dissolved under the pressure of a conflict that originated out of simple hurt.

Acier Moonbound would have been happy to know that.

Then Mercy checked herself. Yanking all that hurt and pain right back into her, packaging it away, pushing it down. Rising up quietly as Mercy looked down on Lily.

"Are you proud of yourself? Happy? I hope you are." She said calmly even while her mind roiled from what had just happened. One of her secrets was in someone else's hands now. Rip and tear, take it back, take it back.

“I just wanted a friend, Ace.” she said softly, collecting herself enough to turn back to him, though her voice was dangerously unsteady. “You know, that thing that happens when two complete strangers decide to trust each other?”

"I just thought you might want a friend." Mercy said, echoing something, from a different time, a different place, without realizing it. "Anyway, have a good day."

And Mercy turned around to march away before she destroyed the entire tent in a fit of rage.

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Tags: Mercy​

The waves of hurt slammed into her and she recoiled like she’d been physically struck. She caught the shift in Mercy’s eyes, the same shift she’d seen a thousand times before in other peoples, in the moment that they considered killing her and for a moment, Lily wished she would.

Then it was gone, the Empress regained control of herself and the hurt that felt like a battering ram vanished back behind guarded walls and Lily felt guilt rising in its wake.

She closed her eyes, shaking her head as tears spilled from beneath her eyelids, shrinking beneath her gaze. She could feel it, behind poorly constructed walls, she could feel that urge, the want to tear Lily apart.

Lily was moving before she could think, before she could rationalise anything her hand catching Mercy’s wrist as she choked back a sob.

“I’m sorry.”

Stars, she was pathetic.

“I can’t…I don’t…” Another sob escaped her as she struggled to explain, struggled to find words to tell Mercy that she didn’t know where she began and where the agony of Abregado - Rae ended.

“I’m sorry.”

 

[Mercy]

Lily Rhodes

It was often a mistake to approach a predator and corner it.

Even emotionally.

When Lily grabbed Mercy's wrist, the large woman stiffened up. All of her froze. Cords in her neck appeared as every muscle in her body screamed to rip the young woman to shreds. She knows, she knows too much, take it all back. The thoughts in the storm fired, practically ordering her to comply. But Mercy didn't like to be ordered around.

Not even by her own neuroses.

She turned towards the young woman and her hand rose... the Force screamed in the air, in warning, in horror?

Then suddenly Lily would feel two thick arms wrapped around her, pulling her in, until she was being embraced by Mercy. "It's okay..." She whispered softly, tightly, down to the child. Even while stroking her hair, her back. "We are okay..." Was this what it meant to view these creatures as her children, truly?

Is this what Srina Talon experienced from day to day? Having her heart broken, patched up again, broken again, over and over again?

Hurt after Vestra Tane 's death. Seeing her again on Abregado-rae... bitter-sweet, but had not undone the suffering.
Pain after Lysander von Ascania 's capture... and the lack of clarity of his last actions. Even now Mercy wasn't sure where they stood.

And now this... offering a secret of hers to someone in need and having it thrown back in her face. Then having to push that down, because Lily needed comfort more than she needed suffering.

How did Srina do this? Why would she do this?

"I fucked it up with you from the start." Mercy murmured quietly into the space of Lily's sobbing. "I want to try... and do better. If you want to give me a chance to."

Again... offering vulnerability, even as every part of her mind recoiled against it.

They had just gone through this. They had just offered up a secret and it had hurt. Why do this again? Why keep putting yourself through it?

Because that is what it meant to take responsibility for those growing around you.

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Tags: Mercy​

Lily’s whole form shook as Mercy pulled her in, wrapping large arms around her in a tight embrace that Lily had no idea she needed, or even wanted. She stopped trying to be brave, to hold it in. Her fingers clutching at Mercy’s shirt forehead resting against her chest as uncontrollable sobs racked her form.

The last person to hold her like this, that she had felt truly safe with, had been Velok Brokentusk and Lily considered him the closest thing to a father that she could get. That realisation gave her pause. She did not feel the same way about Mercy, Mercy did not make her feel safe, she was a monster. But once upon a time, so was Velok.

"Listen - be careful around her... I know you know she's dangerous, but not for the reasons you think. She's only strong if you come to her. Otherwise? She'll lose interest and leave you be. There's a lot to gain in the Covenant, more than just money, but you gotta find your crowd and stick together."

Lily had never come to Mercy, not once. Everytime Mercy had found her. On Alderaan, and Humbarine and now here, so was Arris wrong? Or was Mercy trying a new angle?

"I fucked it up with you from the start." Mercy murmured quietly into the space of Lily's sobbing. "I want to try... and do better. If you want to give me a chance to."

Her sobbing began to subside, slowly as Lily drew in deep breaths squashing it all back down, back beneath the harness, back inside its box. Her head ached and she felt sick. She pulled away just enough from mercy to wipe her face, lifting the bottom of her shirt up to do so, uncovering the red and purple bruising that covered her abdomen.

Her breathing was still uneven when she looked back up at Mercy with a frown.

“Why?”

 

[Mercy]

Lily Rhodes

One surprise for Lily would have been the quality of the hug.

There was something almost absurd about how good Mercy was at this.

She didn't look like someone built for comfort. Yet there was nothing hesitant or awkward about the embrace. She was warm, rooted, impossibly steady. Like finding a cavern in a mountain, only to realize that instead of cold abandonment, someone had already lit a fire inside.

Very few people alive could say Mercy had ever held them like this.

She frowned down at Lily as she posed a reasonable question. Why. It was the question she kept asking herself. Why did she care about this snot-faced brat who kept needling her over and over again. Why force herself to be vulnerable to her? Why give her another chance after having it blown so spectacularly in her face just a few moments ago?

Our children, Mercy had said to Srina. One in the Sith Order, the other in the Sith Covenant.

And that was true.

My responsibility, she had thought to herself just a moment ago. She watched them grow. Their pain was her responsibility just as much as their glory was.

Equally true.

But why Lily out of everyone? Why did she keep returning to her, somehow finding her, even without thinking about it?

"You smell of him." Mercy murmured finally after the pause extended to several breaths. Lily would get a flash of Velok Brokentusk . "And you smell of her." Another flash, this time of Skeevi Merrill .

"It's what made me single you out on Alderaan, but I didn't even realize it until right now."

But that didn't explain why Mercy still tried. The one time, yes. Then on Humbarine, she had let go, actually. Let her walk right into Windrun's embrace, because Mercy had been so certain that Lily wasn't worth the effort.

Abregado came and Lily proved her wrong.

She was here, offering her throat and Lily sank her teeth into it, to tear it out.

She didn't kill her. She wanted to. Instead she left.

Lily yanked her wrist and broke into sobs. Mercy wanted to slap the tears out of her. She hugged her instead.

Why? Why?

"You keep going." Mercy finally said with a sigh. "Everything in the Galaxy conspires against you and you keep going. I love it. It makes me care about you. I don't know why, I am not good at this, okay? You got more emotions out of me in one fucking meeting than most people manage in years."

She bit her lip hard enough for it to bleed... pain. That she understood. That felt right.

"So I care. Even if you make it really fucking hard to with your constant needling. And I want to do better by you. That's all I got for you. I don't have any more revelations that will blow both of our minds tonight."

Defensive at the end of it.

Mercy squeezed Lily once around the hug, gently, and then loosened.

Her arms opened and she gave Lily the choice to stay or step away.

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Tags: Mercy​

Lily blinked through a fresh wave of tears. Mercy knew Velok. The big lump who had helped her, protected her. The Whiphid with whom she’d formed a bond like no other. Chosen family. Jaibrek came to mind, their homestead and suddenly Lily wished very much to go home, to go back to him, to ignore the galaxy and its fight.

But she couldn’t, not because he wouldn't have her, hell he would have been excited to see her home. She couldn’t because she knew that after a few days…maybe even weeks if she was able, she would have to follow that pull in her chest, that itch in her feet would push her back into the middle of it all.

Skeevi was another matter, she was a brief interaction. A wary alliance that had benefited them both, and the parting gift she’d received had saved her skin more than once.

She stepped back when Mercy released her, wiping her face again, her eyes on the floor as she tried to muddle through all of it. Mercy wasn’t just being honest, she was being vulnerable, something that Lily would have never put with her in a thousand years. She still didn’t understand why. Why Lily? Ok, so they had a common friend and Lily’s refusal to just lay down and die was endearing to someone like her.

But she didn’t have to be like this. She didn’t have to be vulnerable.

Lily looked up, opened her mouth to say something and promptly closed it again, clearly confused by the whole thing.

“I...um…” her eyes found the floor again and she shook her head, before looking back up. “I never would have put you and ‘friend’ in the same sentence. The things you do…the things you’ve done…”

She wasn’t trying to be hurtful, she was just trying to return the favour, to be honest with Mercy rather than pretend.

“They are scars on me that I will carry for the rest of my life. But that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to try and understand…and yeah, I’ve got a big mouth for a little shit, its probably gonna get me killed one day, and fuck, maybe i’ll deserve it…”

She trailed off realising that she was getting off point, or maybe she didn’t know what point she was trying to make.

“I don’t know how to do this either.” Her voice was quiet, her eyes on the floor again before she seized something easier to tackle. “How do you know Velok anyway?”